Consultancy firm Ernst & Young (EY) provided the most pessimistic estimate for Romania’s M&A market in H1: 69 deals summing up to USD 1.1 bln, or not even EUR 1 bln, Ziarul Financiar reported.

There were 19% more deals compared to the same period last year (no surprise, given the lockdown enforced at the beginning of the pandemic), but the value of the deals edged up by only 4%.

Statistically not relevant, as long as other major consultancy firms came up with very different numbers: PwC counts 83 mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals in Romania during the first half of the year, worth an aggregated EUR 1.8 bln. This is nearly double the EY estimate.

Somewhere in between, Deloitte already reported only 54 M&A deals worth a total of EUR 1.2-1.4 bln, furthermore noting that the largest part of the market was formed by non-transparent deals with no declared price - therefore, the market approximation is based on estimates.

EY explains why its estimates are so small. Only the transactions involving packages of at least 15% of the shares were taken into account.

Furthermore, the international transactions involving companies or operations in Romania were counted in the number of deals but were excluded from the market value of M&A if the local value of the agreement is not available, say EY representatives.

(Photo: Phonlawat Chaicheev/ Dreamstime)

iulian@romania-insider.com